Soul-stirring sounds of India
THE multi-award-winning fifth generation sitar player Niladri Kumar, along with tabla player Vijay Ghate, premièred Raga Ecstasy at the weekend.
A two-city concert tour of Indian classical music was showcased at the Baxter Concert Hall in Cape Town on Saturday and at the Lyric Theatre in Johannesburg yesterday.
Kumar created the “zitar” instrument, which is a combination of sitar and guitar.
The instrument was modified in order to create a rock guitar sound.
He reduced the number of strings on it from 20 to five and added an electric pick-up inside the instrument so that it would sound more like a guitar.
The zitar is a dynamic and alive instrument and in Kumar’s hands it expands on tradition, without losing the roots from which the sitar sprang.
Joining Nildari on tour was Vijay Ghate, who began his own musical journey with the tabla.
Ghate, who started out beating empty tin boxes while just three years old, developed a passion for the ancient percussion instrument that was a crucial part of the musical storytelling of his country.
His adept and enthusiastic accompaniment has made him a firm favourite of many of India’s renowned classical music artists
Ghate is also one of the few tabla players in the world proficient in accompanying instrumental, vocal and dance music.
The pair delivered what many described as an “exceptional performance” and they transported the audience with their rippling performance of exhilarating fusion between the worlds of classical and contemporary music.
The audience were treated to the soul-stirring sounds of the sitar as manifested in the hands of a maestro accompanied by the passionate pulse of the tabla, creating what has been called “musical splendour”.
This has garnered Kumar recognition from critics and fans all over the world, always leaving his audience spellbound.